Brave Song
by Cantarella of Odile
Summary: there is light all around him./ Luke, Ion.


**Disclaimer:** I do not claim to own _Tales of the Abyss_, nor do I claim to own 'Brave Song' by Aoi Tada, from which the title and lyrics are sampled from.

**Summary:** Luke keeps his eyes closed, and finds himself thinking of Ion. /Spoilers up to the end of the game. (Written for Bre.)

.

**Brave Song**

* * *

_-I was always walking alone. When I looked back, everyone was far away.-_

* * *

There is light all around him.

There is light all around him, falling down and around him like gauze_ (like a veil, like a ceremonial robe)_, and Asch is heavy in his arms. Distantly, he can hear the roar of crumbling walls, the sound of the world coming undone at its seams. The tower is breaking around him, blurring; he can see the sharp edges smear into a veil of blue as he descends.

He is so afraid.

"_So the world did not vanish."_ There is a voice burning behind his eyes, disembodied and unfamiliar and—Lorelei. It's Lorelei, isn't it? It must be. _"To think that the future I foresaw could be rewritten… You have done admirably." _

Asch is heavy in his arms, heavy enough to bring him to his knees, but it is not his weight that finally forces Luke's legs to buckle. His eyes are stinging, and he shuts them against the tears, determined not to let them fall.

_Admirably. Admirably. Admirably._

The voice dissolves, fizzes out like flames. Luke keeps his eyes closed _(like when he was younger, and plagued by nightmares. "Just close your eyes," Guy would say, and Luke would clutch at his patience like a safety blanket. "Pretend that your fears can't see you if you can't see them.") _as the last of the tower gives way and light shoots up from its center, cleaving the clouds in two with its brilliance.

Luke keeps his eyes closed, and casts his thoughts back, back to places that are more tangible than here.

Luke keeps his eyes closed, and finds himself thinking of Ion.

* * *

_-If I fall into the yonder of oblivion, that's running away, right?-_

* * *

"_They don't appear to be mere food thieves, either." The voice that comes from the doorway of the inn is young, and pitched just an octave too high for Luke's liking. The men blocking the doorway shuffle to the side, revealing the figure that stands there, illuminated by the midday light that slants in from outside._

"_Fon Master Ion," the colonel murmurs, and Luke feels his eyes narrow._

"_I was a bit curious, so I investigated the food storehouse," the boy continues. His eyes are large, and guileless in a way that almost makes Luke uncomfortable: they sweep across the assembled people as he speaks, and when they rest on Luke he feels as if something small and sharp has lanced through his heart. "I found this in a corner of the room."_

_The boy steps inside, and the way he walks is careful, as if the floor is a living, breathing thing underneath his feet. His hair—a shade of green lighter than his eyes—billows behind him in two loose sections, and his shapeless white robe lifts slightly in the breeze. _

"_This is fur from a sacred cheagle," Rose says, surprise evident in the way she examines the patch of fur that he places gently in her palm._

_The boy inclines his head slightly. "Yes. A cheagle is probably what raided your food stores."_

"See?_ I _told_ you I wasn't a thief!" The words are hot on Luke's tongue, and they burst out of him with an indignation that makes him clench his fists. _

"_But you did eat that apple without paying." Tear's voice is cold, and it blows through Luke's bones, chilling the hot frustration that had been climbing up his throat. "You need to learn not to do things that will make you look suspicious."_

"_How was I supposed to know? I didn't know I had to pay!" He can feel that boy's—Ion's? Was that his name?—eyes flit over to rest on him again, and a prickling shame crawls across his cheeks. _(Why he feels ashamed, he doesn't know. It wasn't his fault, wasn't his fault at all—and yet, between Ion's blameless gaze and Tear's icy one, it doesn't feel that way in the slightest.)

_The apologies that come after are enough to stifle the anger that still bubbles in the pit of his stomach, but that knot of shame doesn't loosen until he's allowed to step out of the inn and back outside._

_Even then he finds himself twisting back around, his eyes latching onto the boy once more. _(Because he's strange, Luke tells himself. Because he's unfamiliar.)

_Ion's lips turn up at the corners, and Luke shakes himself almost angrily, storming away from the inn faster than necessary._

* * *

_-Even the meaning of having lived will vanish, right?-_

* * *

"_Hey, it's that Ion kid," Luke says, and no sooner do the words leave his lips that the boy lifts one shaking hand, and light _(like gauze, like a ceremonial robe) _sweeps through the forest. _

_The light dies, disappearing as quickly as it came. Ion crumples to the forest floor, hand dropping limply onto the ground, and Luke's running before he's even aware of it: he trips over branches and moss-ridden stones, and his mind is a humming blank with panic._

(It's only later that he wonders why his lungs had felt so constricted, why he had broken into a sprint for a stranger he has no interest in knowing.)

"_Hey, are you okay?" Luke asks. He hovers anxiously as Tear pulls Ion onto her lap, his arms hanging stiffly at his sides as she runs her gloved fingers along his neck and chest, checking for wounds. _

_The boy pushes himself to his feet, nodding to Tear. "I-I'm fine. I just used too strong of a Daathic arte." He twists around, and his enormous eyes focus on Luke, the same peaceful viridian as the forest around them. "Oh, you're the two from Engeve yesterday."_

"_I'm Luke." The words slip out without Luke's permission, and he shifts his weight, unsettled without knowing why._

_The boy turns around to face him properly. "Luke… that means 'light of the sacred flame' in Ancient Ispanian." His mouth curves in a smile. "That's a nice name."_

_The rest of the conversation passes by in a blur, and that discomfort weighs heavy in his chest, only lifting for a moment when Ion says, "You're going to protect me? Sir Luke, I'm so moved!"_

So moved. So moved. So moved.

_Luke strides in front of them both, and tries to ignore the heat that rests heavy on his cheeks._

(On his heart.)

* * *

_-Someday, people will be gone and will live on only in memories.-_

* * *

"_Master, please do your best," Mieu chirps, and the words _(because everyone knows that his best will never be good enough, the thing must be mocking him somehow)_ hits him like a punch to the jaw. _

"_I don't want to hear anything from someone who can't do anything," he snarls, turning partially away. Frustration and shame boil just underneath his skin, streaking his cheeks with red, and all he wants to do is— _

"_I, too, couldn't be of help. I'm sorry." Ion's gaze is too gentle, too serene, as he pads on light feet over to where Mieu sits perched on a boulder. The boy bends, picking up the cheagle with a tenderness that makes Luke avert his eyes._

_"Don't be stupid," he tries to say. The words, as per usual, get lodged in his throat, and he turns partially away. _

_Ion smiles at him anyway._

* * *

_-Even so, that's okay; I call my peaceful feelings friends.-_

* * *

_Time skips, trips, lurches. It spills like tears through his fingers; it moves like the shutter-clicks of a camera._

Click.

_Ion falling asleep against him on the ship, his chin nestled in the crook of Luke's shoulder as the waves threaten to rock them both to sleep. Ion's hair soft under Luke's cheek, and Luke waiting to feel irritated at how trusting Ion is, how fragile. _

_The irritation never coming._

Click.

_Luke realizing that he's always tracing Ion's movements, watching for the slightest hint of fatigue with a crawling sense of anxiety._

Click.

_Luke executing a Radiant Howl, and Ion completing it with a hesitant "Let me see if I can help" and the bright whiteness of his Daathic arte. _

Click.

_Ion beaming up at him, all the trust in the world reflected in his eyes._

Flash.

_Everything falling apart._

* * *

_-If I end up being able to forget it someday, then living—it's just a simple thing, isn't it?-_

* * *

"_Ion, please! Everything will be okay if you just do as Master Van says."_

_Any hesitation dissolves from Ion's face, and he steps in front of the door, stretching his arms out as if in prayer. The lock shatters, and Ion follows Van into the corridor that lays beyond._

_In his mind, Asch is screaming. _Stop, damn you! Don't go!

_Luke trails after them, his steps resounding in the quiet room._

Are you _trying _to destroy Azkeriuth?

_Van's plan is explained, and there's a fear in Ion's eyes, soothed only when Luke says, "It's possible for me. I'm a chosen hero."_

Stop!

"_Now… Foolish replica Luke, unleash your power!"_

STOP!

_Light blazes from Luke's hands in a quake, in a tsunami: it rattles the corridor with enough force to blow Ion back into the wall, his head cracking back against the stone._

_Akzeriuth is breaking around him, blurring; he can see the sharp edges blur into a veil of violet as they descend down into the Qliphoth. _

What have you done, Luke?_ The voice screaming inside his head is no longer Asch's; it's his own._

What have you _done?_

* * *

_-By then, I won't be strong anymore.-_

* * *

"_Why did this happen? You said that Akzeriuth was supported by a pillar, correct?"_

"_Yes, but… that pillar disintegrated." Ion's voice is like glass after someone has stepped on it, and Luke's throat aches with unshed tears. It's blameless, broken, and Luke can't understand why his hands have just now started to shake._

"_How?" Anise asks, breathless with the shock of it all. Ion says nothing; his eyes study the floorboards of the Tartarus._

_It is Tear that turns her gaze onto Luke first._

"_I-I don't know anything about it!" There is a panic that is pounding at his lips, desperate to break free; he's shaking all over. "I was just trying to neutralize the miasma! He told me that if I caused a hyperresonance there, then the miasma would disappear-"_

"_My brother deceived you." Tear's words slice through him cleanly, in one precise stroke. "You destroyed the pillar that supported Akzeriuth."_

"_That can't be," he tries to choke out. _

_Ion finally looks up. "Van… Van ordered you to stand next to the passage ring. Those passage rings are what produce the pillars… Tear is probably right." His voice is stronger now, but his expression is as shattered as Luke feels._

"_I was careless," the boy continues, his eyes dropping once more. "I never dreamed that Van would make Luke do such a thing."_

_One by one the accusations surface, and Luke stares sightlessly at the wall of closed-off faces in front of him and feels as if he's drowning._

(Ion's apologetic expression is among them, though he can't see it clearly- for some reason his vision is swimming, and isn't that strange? It must be the Qliphoth air; it must be, it must be.)

"_You all couldn't do anything to stop it either! Don't just blame me!" The words explode out of him like a sob._

"_You're right," Ion says softly, and Luke clutches at that softness like a safety blanket. "I'm powerless, but still…"_

_Anise yanks him away, away from Luke, but the smaller boy's eyes cling to him until Anise slams the doors shut behind them._

(Once he's gone, Luke certainly does not cry. He does not fall to his knees, and wrap his arms around himself to keep from shaking apart.

(If Duke Fabre_- Father, he corrects himself quickly-_ taught him one thing, it's that a noble cries for no one.

(Especially not himself.)

* * *

_-Someday, I'll forget the days I spent with everyone and be living elsewhere.-_

* * *

_Their reunion is like fitting puzzle pieces back together. _

_It's slow, halting, meticulous—tangles upon tangles of emotions sit knotted in Luke's throat, and though he sees no resentment hidden in Ion's eyes, that doesn't mean it isn't there._

"_Do you think that everyone's forgiven me?" Luke wonders. It's a particularly cold night in Keterburg, and Ion moves closer to him when he shivers, adjusting his scarf so that he can drape it around them both. _

"_Yes." Such a simple answer, but enough to make him want to cry._

"_Have _you _forgiven me?"_

_Ion gazes up at him, his cheeks apple-red from the cold; snowflakes have settled along his lashes and brow line, and Luke thinks that he wants to remember Ion like this, shivering and smiling with flakes of snow melting on his bottom lip. _

"_I was never angry with you, Luke," he says, and Luke can breathe again, suddenly. It's as if the world has righted itself._

_He wishes he knew what that meant._

* * *

_-So that I can even love and laugh at loneliness, I'll fight.-_

* * *

_When things fall apart for the second and final time, they don't just break; they shatter. _

_Luke's running, arms pumping like they had back in the Cheagle Woods; sweat clings to him like a second skin from the volcano's heat, and he ignores the others' pleas to _Stop, wait, take caution.

_It is Ion's voice that reaches him first._

"_ND2019." _

_His voice is too wispy, too placid—a wrenching sense of wrongness clutches at Luke's heart, a cry of _No _tearing away from deep inside him._

"_The forces of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear shall march northward, through the Rugnica Plains."_

_Tears are pushing at his eyes. He can't move, can't breathe properly. _

"_After inflicting atrocities upon the villages in their wake, the army shall surround the fortress capital."_

_Ion's voice has a strange, breathless cadence to it, and it's too calm, too frail. Luke staggers forward a step, foreboding making him feel as if something essential has been torn away from him._

"_Within a fortnight, the city shall fall. The Kimlascan army will stain the Malkuth throne with the blood of its last emperor. Their howls of victory shall resound throughout the land."_

_The words are faltering, slowing, becoming saturated with pain. Tears are leaking into the words, and Luke staggers forwards, trying to work through the paralysis that dread has cast upon his muscles. _

"_ND2020. A mountain of corpses shall bury the fortress capital. Death and disease shall envelope the city. The plague born thence shall become a new poison unto humanity, killing all within its reach. Its spread shall mark the true end of Malkuth."_

_The world is spinning around him, but Luke fights through it, sprinting down the steps towards Ion._

"_Kimlasca shall enjoy decades of prosperity as the plague of Malkuth grows. Ultimately, the plague will be brought into the Malkuth kingdom by a single man." _

_Luke is slow close; just a few more strides, and then—_

"_Stop it, Ion!" The words tear from Luke's throat in a scream. Stumbling towards him, he throws his arms around the other boy, tears streaking hotly down his face. Desperate, he tries to yank him backwards, away from the stone. "You have to stop!"_

_Trustingly, he falls back into Luke's arms, the fingers of one hand still connected to the stone. "The light of the sacred flame shall approach a Kimlascan city of fon machines, seeking a way to purify the taint," he says, his voice stronger; his eyes latch onto Luke's face, roving over it almost searchingly. "There, salvation shall be found through the use of a hidden power…"_

_With that, his hand falls; his head lolls back onto Luke's arm, as if he knew he'd be supported._

("You're going to protect me? Sir Luke, I'm so moved!")

"_Ion, are you okay," Luke shouts, and it's not a question, but a demand. _("I need you to be okay.")

"_Luke…" His eyes flutter open, and the look in them is so far away. "That was my reading of the Score for you; a single path among your many possible futures."_

_Luke's teeth are chattering despite the cold, and he clutches Ion's hand as if_ he's _the one dying_,_ tears still shivering at the tips of his eyelashes._

"_I know you don't depend on others, but this was the only way I could help you."_

"_Shut up! You've helped us out a million times, and you'll keep helping!" The first tear splashes onto Ion's cheek, and Luke curls over him, the other boy's head resting in his lap. _

"… _Luke, don't look at me like that. There are plenty of replacements for me," he says in that gentle, toneless way of his. His hair—a shade of green lighter than his eyes—trails onto the dusty earth in two loose sections, and his shapeless white robe looks gray in the gloom. _

_Luke shakes his head fiercely. "How can you say that? Those other replicas don't know me at all!" His throat stings when he manages to breathe in. "You're the only Ion that went to the Cheagle Woods with me."_

_Ion simply looks at him, and that glance is like a soothing hand sweeping down his face, telling him softly not to cry. "Tear, come closer," he whispers, and Tear obliges, kneeling down onto the rocky earth. "I will… take the miasma from your body into my own."_

_The words steal the breath from Luke's lungs. It's Tear that finally says, "But Fon Master, you'll…"_

_He lifts one hand, placing it lightly atop of hers. "I told you before. There's only one way to save you. The Seventh Fonons are drawn to one another."_

("I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Ion.")

_A sheen of gold cloaks the boy's body, spiraling upwards like dust motes. Luke clutches him tighter, his fingers pressing bruises into his shoulders and waist. "As my own Seventh Fonons dissipate," he says, "so will your contaminated ones."_

"_Ion!" It's a pained cry, and Ion turns his head to smile at him once more._

"_Don't… you see?" he says, and those three words make something inside him crumple. "This way… Tear is… safe…"_

("I needed _you _to be safe.")

"_Ion?" Anise's voice sounds distant to Luke's ears._

"_You don't have to… watch over me… any more… Anise." _

_Through the screen of tears that distort his vision, he can see her begin to tremble. "I'm so sorry, Ion, I—I-"_

_He's becoming heavier and heavier in Luke's arms, colder and colder. T flakes of gold are spiraling up quickly now. _

"_Thank you… for everything… my most… cherished." Ion's voice is laden with fatigue, and at the last moment he turns away from Anise, and blinks up at Luke just as the last word leaves his lips._

_His hand falls from Tear's, and his head droops. Tear pulls away, and Anise's cry of anguish goes unheard as Luke lifts what used to be Ion and cradles him against his chest, burying his face into the crook of his neck as he finally, _finally_ begins to sob._

* * *

_-I'm not afraid of anything anymore, or so I whisper to show you.-_

* * *

_Time skips, trips, lurches. It moves like the shutter-clicks of a camera; it spills through his fingers like tears._

Drip.

_Asking Guy what love is one night as he's combing through his hair, still getting used to its new length. _

_Guy laughing dryly, and continuing polishing his sword. "I'm not exactly the right person to be asking. Why don't you go try Anise?"_

_Luke running his fingers pensively over the bristles of the brush, turning it over and over again in his hands. "What's heartbreak, then?"_

_Guy looking up, then, and Luke seeing the compassion in his eyes reflected in the mirror. "Again, I'm not exactly a guru on the subject, but I have a feeling you already know."_

_Luke dropping his eyes, and placing the brush back onto the dresser. "Maybe." Hesitation. "I just wanted to make sure."_

Drip.

_Sync coming at them like the tempest that is his namesake, a whirl of green and self-hatred and his dissimilarity to Ion is making something hot and angry coil in in Luke's chest._

_Sync goading them, saying, _"_So what is it like, fighting someone that looks just like Ion?" And although the taunt is meant for Anise, Luke is the one charging towards him, his sword swinging down in a rage-fueled arc._

Drip.

_Feeling whole only in the first fleeting seconds of waking up, just before reality starts sinking back into his bones._

Drip.

_The Cheagle Woods alive with memories of him; of his kindness, his empathy, the way his smiles would warm the green of his eyes. The soft viridian haze of the undergrowth is thrumming with his presence._

_Arietta dying, one frail hand reaching upwards through the mist, fingers curling as if in preparation to take hold of someone's hand._

_Luke realizing that maybe his spirit is here, after all._

Drip.

_The party passing through Keterburg, and Luke going missing. Jade going looking for him, and finding him sitting on a bench on the outskirts of town, holding the scarf in his hands in a white-knuckled grip._

Splash.

_Everyone saying their goodbyes to him_ (handshakes, embraces; promises, promises), _but he is achingly aware of one farewell that is missing, and it hurts like an open wound._

* * *

_-Nevertheless, I walked on: that was my strength.-_

* * *

There is light all around him.

There is light all around him, falling down and around him like gauze _(like a veil, like a ceremonial robe)_, and Asch is still lying cold in his arms. Distantly, he can hear a faint thrum in the air, like a thousand murmured voices welcoming him home. The space around him swirls around him in particles of gold; they spiral up like dust motes, gleaming as they wink out into oblivion.

He isn't so afraid anymore.

"_Luke." _The voice that comes now is different from the one before; it's tranquil, toneless. A faint outline takes shape, and the faint glimmer of enormous eyes focus on Luke, the same peaceful viridian as he remembered.

Asch doesn't feel as heavy anymore, but it is not the sudden lightness of his friend's corpse that finally gives Luke the strength to stand. Laying Asch down gently, Luke pushes himself to his feet. His eyes are stinging, and he blinks rapidly, letting the tears flow freely down his cheeks.

"Ion," he whispers.

The outline wavers, and doesn't need to see the other boy's smile to know it is there. _"I'm sorry that I couldn't do more for you, Luke," _the fon master says, and Luke stretches out his hand, touching his fingers lightly to the particles from which Ion's voice is coming. They shimmer under his touch.

"No." The tears shine as they fall, and dissipate into particles of silver at his feet. "You've done everything for me, Ion."

A beat of silence passes between them, and it's as desperate as an embrace. Luke smiles; tears roll into his mouth, clinging to his lips like a kiss. "Am I done now?" he asks.

"_Yes. Luke, you've done so admirably."_

_Admirably. Admirably. Admirably._

Luke takes a step forwards. The particles curl around his wrist and thread themselves through his fingers like a lover's clasp.

"I love you," Luke says, finally. Those words have always been there, inside him, from the very start; he's just never been able to put a name to them.

It feels freeing to do so now.

The particles sweep up his arms and down his legs, and his exposed skin flakes off in motes of gold, spinning somewhere where they'll be safe and loved and free.

"_I love you too, Luke," _Ion says.

The other boy's image wavers again, becomes a sliver more solid. Luke keeps his eyes open _(like when they were travelling on the Albiore, and Luke would stand on the railings, eager to take it all in. "Always remember to keep your eyes open," Guy would say, raising his voice to be heard of the wind. He'd step up to stand beside him on the railing as they both drank in the chilled sea air, the breeze tousling his hair. "You don't want to miss out on anything, right?") _as the last of his body gives way.

Luke keeps his eyes open and keeps his gaze focused on Ion's smiling eyes, keeps his thoughts focused on the feeling of Ion's hand in his.

Luke keeps his eyes open, and finally,_ finally_ lets go.

* * *

_-I was always walking alone. When I looked back, everyone was waiting for me.-_

* * *

_._


End file.
